Is your house bigger than your friends houses?

[PhotobearSam]

I must really re-read my posts before I actually post them.

I by no means think my friends have filthy houses...I have been to all their houses on several occasions. I just think that with their busy lives and demanding jobs, I could not see myself cleaning such a huge house. It must be so time consuming.

I also don't think they SHOULD entertain us, I just thought it was a nice statement about my house that people like to come here.

I have one set of friends who work really demanding jobs and are involved in so many committees and have a huge house with a huge mortgage. I would not want their house even if you gave it to me. It's huge, costs too much and they hardly have time or $ to decorate it. They don't mind it because she says she is never home so who cares...I don't understand but that's her choice.

Sorry if I came off as rude. I was just wondering if we were the only ones that have a smaller home than all my friends.

 

[MushyMushy]

I can never really comment on size because where we live, houses aren't really measured by sq ft. The only time you'll ever see a house described in sq ft is when it's one of the only development's homes. Is this just a thing with newer homes?

Anyway, we've always been way behind my friends. When we rented, it bothered me A LOT, but it didn't affect our friendships, ever. Now that we own our own home, we're smack dab in the middle of where all our friends are and we're quite happy where we are. We could be living much more simply, and we could be living in a much nicer place, but we're comfortable (financially and mentally) where we are. Three of my friends are living in fairly upscale developments in other towns. A few of them live in smaller, older homes in older neighborhoods. We're in an older home, but it's very decent.

 

[S. C.]

Some are larger, some smaller.

 

[PrincessPAC]

It's huge, costs too much and they hardly have time or $ to decorate it.

My "formal" dining room currently consists of a toddler's Cinderella table, a Dora kitchen, a doll-sized high chair, and whatever else DD drags in there. I understand how your friend feels.

 

[Buckalew11]

Some of our friends have much larger homes, others have much smaller homes. We have one friend who is currently homeless. (Not on the street, but definitely with things in storage and living in a motel, so technically homeless. )

I'm not jealous of anyone of them. I love my home, it's just the right size, and I find it very comfortable. It has a spa tub, vaulted ceilings, and all sorts of other things, but we aren't swimming in debt as a result. This is our second home. our first home was smaller and we lived well below our means so that we could save to build this place and have some "upgrades."

I don't think that it's appropriate or even close to accurate to assume that anyone with a larger or nicer home must be drowning in debt. You never really know what someone's circumstances are.

I have a friend who lives in a really cute home, probably 2400 s/f. She works at Home Depot, makes maybe $10 an hour. She drives a brand new car. When she got divorced, she and her ex sold their home--which made them a tidy profit due to real estate market at the time. She put that money into investments and draws on the interest/dividends only. Her father is quite wealthy and bought the house she's living in for her. She only pays her utlities and the taxes. She saved her money and paid cash for the car. But she doens't go around telling everyone her life story, so I'm sure many think she must be in debt to ehr eyeballs. Far from it.

My home is about 2950 s/f under air. I don't know why anyone would think it was harder to keep that clean than a smaller home? I've got an extra hour of vacuuming, dusting, and mopping each month over my previous home which was a little more than half the size.

I would not consider a 2950 sq. ft. home to be too much to clean either. The houses I'm speaking of around here are much larger than that. But, I'm thinking if they have houses that big, they have someone come in to clean. heck, even my sister has a housekeeper.

 

[lulu71]

We have the smallest house out of all of our friends, but in the nicest neighborhood. We will be in this smallish house for a while because my daughter's tuition is and will be at least 4x my friend's kid's tuitions and I have two kids, two years apart. If it weren't for that, we would probably live in a larger house because Lord knows, the extra space would be so nice!

 

[kribit]

Couldn't tell you how many sq. ft my house is (I think it's around 2700), but some of our friends have larger homes and some have smaller. I don't normally pay attention. Personally, I like the smaller homes better (cozy with much more character).

We did move out of a development and one of the reasons was that everyone was always comparing. DH and I are not like that and couldn't take it. We live in another development but it's much different. We are the youngsters...most of our neighbors are in their 50's.

 

[Kickapoo Joie Juice]

This reminds me of a funny joke: What did one firecracker say to the other firecracker? My pop's bigger than your pop!

Seriously, I have a three toilet limit on houses. I can't keep up with more than three toilets. It's worked really well for us.

Nowadays you can't look at the size of a house and figure out how much money other people have, what with exotic loans and creative debt restructuring.

I like to use happiness as a yardstick, anyway. I'm happy, I hope my neighbors are too.

You should move this thread over to the budget board(my fave haunt), you'll get lots of interesting replies

 

[disneymom3]

Our house is pretty big as far as comparison to our friends goes. We can afford it, but I have to admit our priorities were different at the time we bought it. I am honestly a little bit embarrassed when we have our church group over because in comparison to some of them we look like we live in a mansion and must be rich. Compared to some in the world we are, but not to the average American.

 

[kfeuer]

Our house is probably smaller then most our friends, but I haven't paid that much attention. I'm not jealous of bigger homes per se, but I am jealous of some of the features that newer houses have.

My master bathroom is tiny. You can't shut the door if you're sitting on the toilet, and there's no room for more then one person at a time. My kids have a bigger bathroom then I do.

My laundry area is in my kitchen behind louvered doors. I would love a true laundry room UPSTAIRS where I could have room for sorting baskets, a place to leave the ironing board up, etc.

I would also like a walk-in pantry. Right now I have to store my less-used appliances (like my crockpot) out in the garage, which means I have to wash them before I can use them.

 

[Arielle22]

My sbilings envy my view not my house. I have a great view of the ocean from my bedroom. DH and I bought the property from my mom and tore down the cottage that were on it. We built a modular house. I do think I have a larger house then my siblings but since I have taken in 2 siblings and our mom (at different times) no one seems to mind.

I was the 2nd sibling to buy a house. At first, their envy was directed to my 2.5 bathrooms! Growing up it was 11 people (8 kids, 2 parents and my nana) in 1 bathroom.

 

[Kickapoo Joie Juice]

After we moved, our closest friends stopped talking to us. When we did finally get ahold of them, they said "well, you're too good for us now". We never said or did anything to them to make them feel this way. Now, whenever we do run into them, they always have some comment about the house. (It's been 4 years! It's just a house!)

You know, I'm reading a book about stuff that deals with that right now.

Evidently some people feel on some level that having money is "bad", and that they very effectively block themselves from making more money or being open to new opportunities to making more money by holding onto this attitude (the "you're too good for us" attitude).

The book says that until you can let go of the negative associations you have towards successful people you'll never be successful yourself. It was a very interesting theory, to say the least!

 

[Whosemom]

Our house is 1700 ft and fits our family perfectly. We have enough space to get away from each other if we feel the need, and enough space in "public" rooms to all be together along with friends. I don't want or need more.

That being said, I gotta tell you about this house I visited the other day. WOW. You could easily fit at least 4 of my house into their house. There was an atrium thingy in the middle! There was a dark theater room with a wall size screen. I think there were 6 additional "gathering" rooms, not including the formal dining room. Whew! BUT!!! The bedrooms were all smaller than ours. The kitchen was a little bigger. The HALLWAYS were huge. Talk about wasted space. It all looks very impressive, but I like mine better. Peeling wall paper and all, I wouldn't trade. The owner is a new friend, and I think we may become quite good friends, but we could live on different planets. The love of God is a great equalizer.

 

[Freyja]

Our house isn´t big for our family of soon to be 7. It´s spprox. 2300 sq.feet, has 5 small bedrooms and 1 1/2 bath. But it´s still bigger than all of our friends houses. Most of our friends don´t have 4 or 5 kids though. They have 0-3.

 

[nataliela]

I think I win with the smallest house of the post!!! 790 sq ft!!!! Its our "project" Our friends have nicer homes in nicer neighborhoods, but we always joke with the commercial "I'm in debt up to my eyeballs!" because they are in so much debt, we are not in that much debt and will make a profit when we move. Why spend the extra money when you don't need the extra space. (but our house will be on the market soon, I have no place for my clothes )

But we don't entertain often, simply for the fact that they would not fit!

 

[freckles and boo]

We bought our home ten years ago from an older Irish lady named Bridie whose youngest child was heading off to graduate school. She and her husband raised seven kids in this house. The four girls shared the big bedroom (now our room). The three boys shared the addition (now our playroom). Our two daughters now share what was the parents' room. Whenever I start to wish I had a bit more space I think of how they managed to raise seven kids and send them all to college. My house will be paid off before my girls start highschool. That, to me, is worth not worrying about big house/small house issues. Yes, some of our friends have bigger houses and some have smaller houses. It doesn't impact our friendships.

 

[Chicago526]

Out of all my friends, only one other owns. Her place is either the same size or smaller than mine, but I own a single family and she owns a town home (actualy its a coach home or manor home, for those that know what that is!). The rest of my friends still rent.

My one brother's house is bigger by far, my other brother will have the same square footage, but will have a two car attached (mine is single detached) and his will be newly built (once it's done) and mine is 60 years old. I envy my brothers' only because their homes are newer and don't need tens of thousdands of dollars in remodeling!

 

[ZPT1022]

It makes me feel like I accomplished our goal of having a HOME nit just a nice HOUSE.

That is it right there. I could care less about the actual house, as long as it feels like home. I've been in houses that are huge and beautiful, but feel more like a museum than a house. We live in a small townhouse, but we have a home. For us it is hard to compare because we are far ahead of our friends as far as having a family. Lots of them are just getting married and just having their first babies, and we already have a first grader and two preschoolers. Neither one is better, just different. If we hadn't had kids on the younger side, we probably wouldn't have been able to have kids. I'd trade that for a bigger, fancier house any day

 

[ducklite]

That being said, I gotta tell you about this house I visited the other day. WOW. You could easily fit at least 4 of my house into their house. There was an atrium thingy in the middle! There was a dark theater room with a wall size screen. I think there were 6 additional "gathering" rooms, not including the formal dining room. Whew! BUT!!! The bedrooms were all smaller than ours. The kitchen was a little bigger. The HALLWAYS were huge. Talk about wasted space. It all looks very impressive, but I like mine better. Peeling wall paper and all, I wouldn't trade. The owner is a new friend, and I think we may become quite good friends, but we could live on different planets. The love of God is a great equalizer.

We have homes like this in our neighborhood, and I couldn't agree more. I've got the smallest house in the neighborhood by at least several hundred square feet, but it feels like a home, not a castle or grand hotel. One of the reasons we chose the floor plan we did was that there's minimal "wasted space."

 

[Mickeyluver37]

We definitely have the smallest house out of all of our friends, except maybe 1 or 2. Ours is a little under 1800 sq. feet, and most of theirs are at least 2 times that size. Some of my friends live in townhouses, and they are still at least a couple hundred square feet bigger than ours. Does it bother me? Well, yes and no. Although we have 4 bedrooms, and it's enough for our growing family, those 4 bedrooms take up most of the space of the house! There isn't a lot of "common area" space. We have an ok sized kitchen, and 2 ok sized living rooms (on different floors), but no dining room. A lot of times when our friends get together, it can be several couples and all the kids, and I really never feel like we can host anything of that size, so yes, that does bother me. Does it bother me enough to go full time at my job rather than becoming at SAHM when Baby #3 is born so we can afford a huge house? No! I'd rather stay in the small house and be happier. We live in a great school district in a very expensive area, and most of our friends are 6-10+ years older than us, so I have to remind myself often that we're really doing ok.